Candler Cook's From Underdog to Bulldog Hit #1 in 5 Amazon Categories, Got Him Hired Into Private Debt, and Is Becoming a $6M Major Motion Picture 7 Years After Launch
"I could never have imagined this. I hoped maybe I'd sign a few copies at the bookstore on game day. The book has been the multiplier on everything that came after."
— Candler Cook, Private Debt Investor, UGA Football Walk-On
Candler Cook walked on to the University of Georgia football team his junior year, played in one game, dressed for many, and stood on the sideline at the SEC Championship his senior season. Seven years ago, he published From Underdog to Bulldog with Scribe, expecting maybe a few signings at the campus bookstore on game day. A few weeks after launch, the man who is now his CEO read about the book in a fraternity alumni email and asked for an introduction. Six weeks later, Candler was in a new private debt role he still has today. Last year, a film attorney introduced him to a production company. The screenplay, now adapted by UK Film Award winner Alec Roth, is in development on a six-million-dollar budget with full University of Georgia partnership: the first film ever to use UGA football facilities.
A book born from mentoring one friend
Candler started writing because he was mentoring a younger UGA student named John who had the exact same dream he had: walk on to the Bulldogs football team with very long odds. John hadn't played much high school football. He thought people would laugh at him for trying. Candler helped him through it. John made the team. Candler walked away from that conversation thinking: if I write this down, John isn't the only person who needs it. Tens of thousands of people have an impossible-looking goal sitting in front of them. The book became a how-to for breaking down those goals into bite-sized pieces, told through Candler's football story.
Writing the book between 10 p.m. and midnight, after MBA classes
Candler wrote the first draft over six months. He was working full-time. He went to business school in the evenings from six to nine. He grabbed dinner, then sat down to write from ten to midnight. Most nights felt like a six out of ten. The first draft ran about four hours of reading time. The publishing manager at Scribe pushed him to cut it to three hours, removing material that mattered to him but didn't move the book along. He was grateful for the second pair of eyes. He had been obsessing over every sentence in isolation. The publishing partner helped him let go.
The fraternity alumni email that ended in a new career
A couple of weeks after launch, Candler's now-CEO read a couple of sentences about the book in his UGA fraternity's monthly alumni newsletter. They were in the same fraternity, a decade apart at the same school. He asked the head of the alumni chapter for an introduction. They had lunch. Candler could tell immediately the fit was right. About six weeks later, when Candler's private equity firm went through a sale, he jumped to his new company. Seven years in, he loves the work. The role is more interpersonal than the cubicle-grinding analyst years that prepared him for it, and pays better than the private equity role he left.
"I could never have imagined this. I hoped maybe I'd sign a few copies at the bookstore on game day. The book has been the multiplier on everything that came after."
— Candler Cook
The unexpected film deal — and the first UGA football movie ever
Two years ago, an attorney named John Myers, who had referred deals to Candler's firm and invested in his fund, introduced him to a film production company. The company optioned the book. The screenplay is written by Alec Roth, whose father Eric Roth wrote Forrest Gump, Dune, and A Star Is Born, and who recently won a UK Film Award for his screenplay Billy Knight starring Al Pacino. The script keeps the heart of Candler's story (including the 120 pounds of muscle he packed on in three years) and adapts the parts that don't translate to film into montages. A love interest and a mentor character were added with Candler's blessing. The budget is six million dollars. The casting list under discussion for Candler's role includes Patrick Schwarzenegger (recently in White Lotus season three) and Tanner Buchanan (Robby Keene in Cobra Kai). For the mentor role, the production is reaching for Denzel Washington or Al Pacino. Pacino has signaled he wants to keep working.
The UGA partnership and the NIL landscape
No film has ever been shot at UGA's football facilities. Notre Dame had Rudy. Clemson got Safety. Arkansas got Greater. Florida got Run the Race. Ohio State got Touchback. Alabama appears in Forrest Gump. Georgia, until now, has been on the bench. Getting the partnership done has been an adventure: UGA shut down its Classic City Collective NIL entity, brought in a third-party marketing company, and then, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that turned college football players into employees and imposed a $20.5 million annual salary obligation per school, fired the marketing company and stood up a new NIL collective called Glory Glory. Through all of it, Candler kept the relationship alive. The partnership is now in place.
How Candler keeps the drumbeat going seven years in
Candler isn't doing the launch-week marketing push anymore. He does one UGA game-day book signing a year, where the campus bookstore stocks up on copies before the event and a few alumni authors share a table. He goes back on a small list of podcasts as a repeat guest each year. He noticed every push produces a small sales bump. The book never made the New York Times bestseller list. It never sat on the front shelf at Barnes & Noble. It did hit number one in five Amazon categories. More importantly, it gave him career inflection points he could not have engineered any other way.
"You don't feel ready, and then you begin. And then you feel ready as you go through it. If the idea keeps coming back, it's your subconscious telling you to write it. Everyone is busy. Take the jump."
— Candler Cook
What's next
The movie is in development. The casting is in motion. The UGA partnership is in place. Candler still works in private debt at the company he joined because the CEO read about his book in a fraternity newsletter. He encourages first-time authors to send their book where their network can find it, and then to trust that the network will do the rest. His underdog story walked him into a job, into a screenplay deal, into a UGA partnership, and is about to walk a lot more people into the same theater. From Underdog to Bulldog stayed niche on Amazon. It was the right book for the right reader. That turned out to be more than enough.
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